Published German patent document DE 196 25 059 discloses a fuel injector for the direct injection of fuel into a mixture-compressing internal combustion engine having external ignition, which injector provides a flow path for the fuel from a fuel intake to a spray-discharge orifice, in which flow path a plurality of fuel channels are arranged in front of the discharge orifice, the cross-section of the fuel channels determining the amount of fuel injected per time unit at the given fuel pressure. In order to influence the fuel distribution in an injected mixture cloud and to achieve selective skeining of the mixture cloud, at least a portion of the fuel channels is aligned such that in an open fuel injector the fuel jets exiting from the fuel channels are injected directly through the spray-discharge orifice.
Particularly disadvantageous in the fuel injector of the aforementioned are the limited opportunities for intervening in the formation of the mixture cloud. Apart from varying the jet broadening and the alignment of the center-of-gravity axis of the mixture cloud, there is barely any possibility of influencing deviations from the conical shape, e.g., irregular mixture clouds and heterogeneously distributed jet penetration. Accordingly, the possibilities for lowering the fuel consumption and exhaust emissions are limited.